John Donne (1572–1631) was born into a prominent Catholic family but converted to the Church of England in his twenties. At the age of eleven he entered Oxford University for a period of three years, and then Cambridge, but he never took a degree. In 1615 he became an Anglican priest, and in 1621 the dean of Saint Paul’s Cathedral. Donne’s poetry, prose and sermons were famous for their eloquence, subtly, psychological analysis and brilliance, especially as they described the complex paradoxes of the human condition. In this sonnet he implores God to free him from his seemingly intransigent entanglement with sin.